Hall of Fame
Ray Harding was the quarterback on Missouri Southern's 1972 NAIA Division II football championship team. Then he had a successful coaching career, capped by a 16-year stint at Carthage High School. That combination earns him membership in the Joplin Sports Authority Hall of Fame Class of 2024.
Harding's journey to become a college football quarterback was unorthodox, to say the least. As an Army brat, he graduated from the Tehran American School in Tehran, Iran.
"What my dad did was work in a particular section in Tehran, and then the school itself was on the north end of town," Harding said. "Basically, that's where all the American kids went. That's where I met my wife (Cindy). Her dad was the superintendent of the school. That's where we ran across each other."
Concerning football, "We played over there on the embassy grounds 7-man intramural football among the high school kids," he said. "There was nobody to play but ourselves.
"There was an officer, a captain, who had gone to East Texas State University, and through him, he actually got me to go to East Texas State to play football. That basically was from his observance of our intramural football program."
Harding spent a red-shirt season at East Texas State (now Texas A&M-Commerce) before transferring to Cowley County Community College in Arkansas City, Kan. One year later, he transferred to Missouri Southern and passed for 3,754 yards and 40 touchdowns in three seasons. He threw for 1,578 yards in the Lions' championship season, which pretty much came out of the blue. They went 4-6 in 1971 under new head coach Jim Frazier.
"It was pretty interesting to say the least," Harding said. "We were confident because we had a lot of starters back. But you never know what to expect. We traveled up to Fort Hays and won that first game (40-15). The confidence factor just built and built after that."
The Lions went 10-0 during the season, spiced by a 7-0 victory at UNLV. The Lions won their first playoff game 24-6 over Doane (Neb.) at Junge Field, and they also had home field advantage for the championship game against Northwestern (Iowa). The Lions trailed 14-7 in the fourth quarter when Harding and Kerry Anders connected for a 58-yard touchdown pass. "It was a short crossing route," Harding said. "I got the ball to him, and he turned the corner and was gone." The Lions went for the 2-point conversion, but Harding's pass went incomplete, and they trailed 14-13 with 3:21 remaining. Northwestern lined up to punt about two minutes later, but the punter mishandled a high snap, and Sam Keoloha fell on the ball in the end zone. The Lions added the conversion run with 1:28 left, and the defense made a final stop to preserve the 21-14 victory.
Harding's coaching career began with three years at Mulvane (Kan.) before coming to Carthage, where he was head coach from 1979-94) and he retired from Carthage in 2004.
After Carthage, Harding worked for 10 years at Fort Leonard Wood near Waynesville. "I took one deployment to Iraq, and then in 2014 I shut her down," he said. "And Cindy and I moved back to Joplin."
